MICHAELA EICHWALD

‘Unfortunately, I am not up to date. Is painting dead at the moment, or is it alive again? MichaelaEichwald’s paintings give us a clear answer. For twenty years (????) she has given us the gift of anunending series of surprises. We keep asking ourselves, where did that come from?

I don’t understand her paintings at all, but it’s good that way. If you think artworks are bad, this isfirst of all because you understand them: I see, OK, who cares? But when I stand in front of apainting and wonder, how did she make that? Why did she make that? How did she get that idea?then it puts me in a state of euphoria.

Triumph comes to those who defy danger. Who are afraid of nothing. It’s a special advantage whenthe artist has no fear of getting close to other art. Originality doesn’t lie on the surface. It’s not aboutgetting the last empty seat. We see picture elements that not too long ago were introduced as acts offormal boldness and now give their artists the flair of youthfulness until tedium sets in. Neon colors,comic strip elements, brand logos, and trashy materials will not produce another springtime.

There is no protection (reinsurance) through irony or references. Polke’s critique of the middle class,his jokey handling of disgusting materials has been understood and checked off. This is aboutsomething else.

It is the gesture (which I don’t want to explain here) with which Michaela Eichwald lets these partsgo at each other, the self-assurance and generosity with which the artist employs them. The way shecompletely ignores studied painting techniques, her use of housepaint, shellac, and picture supportsfrom 1-Euro shops don’t seem intended as a provocation. Instead, they attest that great, originalpaintings are not made by layering precious materials from the painting apothecary, but rather,through critical self-observation while experimenting on the canvas.

Catastrophes of painting are allowed to go at each other. Whatever is on the canvas is accepted orthrown away. “Accidental” forms, splattered down or made however else, are valued equally withstructures of controlled painting and merge into them. Then it is no longer an accident, but theexample of a painting that relies on nothing but the artist’s attentiveness and imagination.

Playing with the spirits of Gestalt perception and with the desire to see old friends again. “Oh, it’s aself-portrait! Or a bicycle?” It seems as if they should be abused as (chemical) experiments, with mybrain. As if they were waiting to feed the viewer’s brain to the painting.

I am 2 oil paintings.What will happen? I don’t know.’

ALBERT OEHLEN, May 2023

Michaela Eichwald was born in Gummersbach, Germany, in 1967. In the late 1980s she studied philosophy,history, art history, and German philology in Cologne, where she also began her career as a visual artistduring the 1990s. In 2012, she was awarded the Prix Lafayette. She lives and works in Berlin and teaches atthe Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien in Austria. Her first writings were published in the 1990s andhave been published in her personal blog, Uhutrust.com, since 2006.

Eichwald’s forthcoming institutional show will be presented at the Neue Galerie Gladbeck, Germany inAugust 2023. Over the last decade, her work was presented in solo exhibitions in many internationalinstitutions such as Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2021-2022); Lenbachhaus, Munich, (2020); The WalkerArt Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2020); Kunstverein Schwerin, Germany (2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris(2014); Silberkuppe, Berlin (2013). Eichwald has also participated in numerous group shows such as You:Works from the Lafayette Anticipations Collection, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2019); Painting2.0–Kunst im Informationszeitalter, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (MUMOK), Vienna, Austria(2016); , La 5e Biennale de Rennes (2016); The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in anAtemporal World, , New York (2014).